Neo Geo CD Shooters

[scrilla4rella]

I managed to get a busted Neo Geo CDZ for super cheap. I swapped out the CD mech and it now works like a charm. Which Shmups do you guys recommend? Here is a list of the shooters and what the consensus is based on my initial research. Let me know if any of y'all have a different opinion.

Sonic Wings 2: enjoyable
Sonic Wings 3: enjoyable (less so then SW2)
Viewpoint: enjoyable
Ghost Pilots: skippable
Ninja Comando: Good if you can find it for a decent price
Iron Clad: good but not worth the price
Last Resort: enjoyable and worth it
Pulstar: reason to own the system
Twinkle Star Sprites: (I'll prob go for the cheaper Saturn version)
Last Hope: not worth it
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(Borderlines)
Metal Slug: pricey but worth it
Metal Slug 2: loading times are fucked
Cyber Lip: (Looks a little too 1st gen NG for me, not sure tho)
Nam-1975: (I'm getting this for nostalgia)
--
I also want to get Mutation Nation because I love brawlers

Please let me know if you have any recommendations or feedback.

[IseeThings]

I think you missed only Alpha Mission 2...

[Plasmo]

If you like classic horizontal shmups like Last Resort and Pulstar then Last Hope will definitely appeal to you. The gameplay and design is very similiar to these two games.

[Ghegs]

Pulstar is great, but I'd have gone crazy with those loading times. I might even go as far as recommending you sell the CDZ and put the money towards a CMVS and a Pulstar cart. Depending on what games you end up picking up, you might even make it out cheaper in the end.

But any road that leads to playing Pulstar and Last Resort is a good road.

[Obiwanshinobi]

Ninja Commando is on ADK Tamashii (worth it for Ninja Master's alone). Yes, the graphics are interlaced and filtered, BUT it only looks awful in Twinkle Star Sprites (which slows down a lot). The kind of graphics Ninja Commando (and Aggressors of Dark Kombat) have didn't suffer much damage dare I say.
Loading times on Neo Geo CD are most likely way worse and Ninja Commando is pretty rad (yay, co-op). Very enjoyable compilation.

[shmuppyLove]

I really enjoy IronClad on the Wii VC, and CyberLip is an amazing game.

[scrilla4rella]

Thanks for the feedback guys. I've heard some chatter that the load times on Pulstar aren't all that bad. If it's between levels then I don't mind so much. Actually I already have the game on VC and I'll prob get Iron Clad on VC shortly (even though I hear it's too dark.). I just picked up Last Resort today and yeah, it's great. I don't mind the load times so much as it's just between levels. I guess I never realized the Last Resort was so highly respected, when I played it on the SNK classics collection for ps2 it didn't do anything for me, tho that's probably because the port was garbage.

I have a massive Sony PCM 2530 that doesn't tate well so having an RGB ready system with all horizontally oriented games is a bid deal. I think I'll stick with the CDZ for the time being and just enjoy some of these cheaper games before I decide to go for the expensive ones but you're probably right, Ghegs, NGCD is a bit of a joke compared to the CMVS.

Obiwan: I never knew about the ADK Tamashii comp but I'll keep an eye out for that one but honestly I't pretty much RGB or bust for me. I don't have a monitor that can do component. It would still be nice to have that set tho.

And now I'll have to keep an eye on Cyberlip prices, thanks a lot

[Obiwanshinobi]

PS2 does output RGB (certainly via SCART). There might be a way to display it on whatever monitor you have without modding a console. Not that I would recommend ADK Tamashii for the graphics (those will be inferior no matter what).

[CIT]

Congrats on scoring the CDZ, it's a great system for playing Neo Geo shooters. In many ways I prefer the games over the MVS versions because of the excellent arranged sound the CDs usually got.

The only shooter that has significant loading times is Pulstar (but you can eliminate a lot of loading if you set the stage intros to off).

I recommend the following:

Last Resort
Pulstar
Viewpoint
Ninja Commando
Twinkle Star Sprites
Sonic Wings 2

[LSU]

Agreed - the only shooter with any loading times worth worrying about is Pulstar, and as he says, you can cut those in half by turning off the animated cut scenes. On a CDZ all the other shmups load up pretty well. Last Resort in particular is a real treat - a highly underrated game IMO.
(Most fighting games, however, are a different situation entirely - you'll want an MVS system for those or you'll be tearing your hair out waiting for each character to load in.)

[Jeneki]

So NeoGeoCD Viewpoint has decent load times?

I used to have the PS1 version, which was pretty laughable. It reloads after each miss for a minute or so. I probably spent more time watching load screens than playing the game.

[LSU]

Yeah, Viewpoint is not a problem at all - at least with a CDZ console (that's my only frame of reference I'm afraid, as its the only Neo CD console I have). The game itself runs much better than the PS1 version too; smoother framerate.

[scrilla4rella]

cool, thanks for the info guys. I got the Last Resort but am waiting on a RGB cable before I dive into it. I also got KOF94 which i heard is one of the few fighting games that doesn't have unreasonable loading times

[spadgy]

I was always put off NG-CD by the speculation about huge load times. So the shmups on the system escape from that on the whole do they?

I really enjoy IronClad on the Wii VC, and CyberLip is an amazing game.

I've always wanted to play this, as I so adore Saurus' Shock Troopers games. I've held off on the Wii version, for some reason.. So the Wii build is decent is it? Anybody know if it's an accurate port?

EDIT: Update - good synopsis of the VC version's quality here by 8 /12.

[CIT]

I was always put off NG-CD by the speculation about huge load times. So the shmups on the system escape from that on the whole do they?

The shmups generally load once for about 20 seconds when you boot them up, and then you're good to go for the rest of the game. To me it's not really any worse than sitting through the logos of all of the graphics engines at the start of any current gen game. The only exceptions being Pulstar and to a much lesser extent Brikinger, which also load before stages.